Folks, I hate to say I told you so, but I did. I simply couldn’t see a way that the Cowboys would be NFC Championship Game bound this season. I felt that there were far too many superior teams than the Cowboys and the game against Favre and Company proved it. Make no mistake about it: the Cowboys were the inferior team on the field. It was a complete role reversal from last week’s game. The Eagles had no answer for us and the Cowboys had no answer for the Vikings.
As I did with last week’s game, I will break down each of the three “Romo Friendly” keys for victory and see how well (or how badly) the ‘Boys did in achieving each. Hopefully this analysis will allow us to see the reasons why the Cowboys were beat so soundly.
Key #1: Balance
As with last week, I said the Cowboys needed to remain balanced and stay within a 55-60% pass play rate. Against the Vikings, the Cowboys ran 66 plays and only ran the ball 25 times. That leaves us with a total result of 62.1% pass for the game. Now, while this pass rate is clearly above the bounds I set for this key, keep in mind that the Cowboys entered desperation mode in the fourth quarter and went very pass heavy in order to try and make it a game.
The thing to take home here is that Garrett did not abandon the run completely as he has done in previous losses. I was actually rather pleasantly surprised to see Garrett stick to the run while opening the second half. Typically, this would be a situation in which Garrett knee-jerks and uses the passing game as a clutch to play catch up. This time around that did not happen and the rushing game put together a respectable 92 yards on the ground against one of the best rushing defenses in the league.
You can’t completely place a blame on Garrett for passing just a little bit more than this key required. Garrett put together a decent, balanced gameplan, but it just didn’t work and the Vikings stopped it in it’s tracks.
Key #2: Tony Romo
For this key, Romo needed to try to reach for the 300 yard plateau and ensure he turned the ball over no more than once. To say that this key resulted in failure was an understatement.
Romo finished the day 22/35 (62.9%) for 198 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT, 3 fumbles with 2 of those being lost. The critical key of protecting the ball game back to bite the Cowboys hard as they fell to 0-5 when Romo turns the ball over more than once. On top of that, Romo feel just over 100 yards short of the 300 mark.
However, it is tough to completely blame everything on Romo based on just these numbers. Despite the turnovers, it is hard to claim he was inaccurate and not trying to take care of the ball and his 62.9% completion rate attests to that. The two lost fumbles came on the result of sacks on Romo: one was flat out ripped from his arms as he went down on a sack, and the other was the result of a clean blindside shot Romo never saw coming. On top of that, Romo was sacked four more times beyond that, resulting in a total of 6 sacks given up on the day for Dallas.
Romo was running for dear life the entire game. Even his lone INT came as a result of trying to get away from the pocket collapsing around him. It didn’t seem to matter what the Cowboys called, whether it was a max protect scheme or short dump routes, Romo simply did not get the time he needed. He couldn’t take any real shots downfield and was restricted to passes 20 yards and shorter–if he could even get those off.
Make no mistake, Romo must shoulder at least part of the blame for not taking care of the ball, but I don’t think even Peyton Manning could’ve won behind our line. Either way, following key #2 was a complete and utter failure.
Key #3: Red Zone
For this key, I said the Cowboys needed to make the most of their red zone chances. I also added on that for this tough road game, they’d have to get a TD in their first red zone trip and they must get it early to take the crowd out of the game.
That flat out never happened; in fact, the Cowboys only had a single trip into the red zone. To make matters worse, that trip resulted in a “goal to go” situation in which the Cowboys failed to convert. As far as the timing of the trip, it came at the beginning of the second quarter, but more importantly, it happened while the score was only 7-0. The Cowboys had a chance to shake off everything that had happened to that point, and tie the game on a superb 82 yard drive and silence the crowd.
Instead, Felix Jones was stuffed up the middle, Romo was sacked and then Romo was under severe pressure and forced to throw the ball away. The Cowboys left points on the board and had to settle for a field goal. As I had warned before, you can’t do that against good teams because they will cash in. The Vikings did just that and immediately scored a TD on the next drive. Instead of the worst case scenario being 14-7, a single possession game, the Cowboys were then faced with a two-score deficit of 14-3.
The Vikings never looked back after that. Key #3 was also a monumental failure.
The Verdict
As the title says, the offense completely ran into a wall. Of the three keys, you can only make an argument that one was achieved, the other two (Romo and the red zone) resulted in a complete disaster that reflected the outcome of the game. Simply put, the Vikings defense (especially their pass rush) flat out beat the Cowboys. There isn’t a whole lot that you can do as an offense when you lose the battle in the trenches and the opposing defensive line seems to be in the backfield every play.
The Cowboys have had a good run, but all good things must eventually come to an end. This time around, the end came in Minnesota and there really wasn’t much the Cowboys good to about it.
Tip your hat to Minnesota because they simply overwhelmed the ‘Boys.
